Thunderclap describes itself as “the first ever crowdspeaking platform the helps users be heard by saying something together.” The online tool allows a single message to be shared at exactly the same time, “flash-mob style” via Twitter and Facebook. This amplifies the message and allows for a viral tidal wave of “sharability”. Generic advertising has been proven to be effective when everybody sees it at the same time, sometimes referred to as the Superbowl effect. However social media by nature is much more random with people sharing messages at different times of the day and often on different days. This means that the impact is often lost and the messages do not achieve viral status. Thunderclap is a very simple, but clever tool which enables organisations with enough initial supporters more chance of exposure through trends locally, nationally and globally. Thunderclap has been developed by a US advertising agency Droga5 and it’s currently FREE!
A few examples of international development organisations, NGOs and charities who have used Thunderclap
Possibly the most effective use of Thunderclap was by the UN to promote World Humanitarian Day. They aimed to reach one billion people with their campaign and achieved it in within 20 minutes of the launch. Like other Thunderclaps they had the backing of a celebrity, no other than Beyonce performing her song “I was Here” in the UN General Assembly. It was also supported by Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Shakira and many more. You can read more about the success of their Thunderclap on Mashable.
The Royal British Legion recently used Thunderclap innovatively to promote a two minute silence, their message read “I’ll be remembering the fallen at 11 o’clock #2MinuteSilence #LestWeForget,” will be sent at 09:00 GMT on Remembrance Sunday.
Another success was Oxfam’s Stop #landgrabs campaign which had a social reach of 691,779 and aimed to raise awareness of land grabs and target the World Bank to stop funding them.
On 1st December for World Aids Day, Durex will donate one condom for each HIV message shared. Their target is to reach 2.5 million condoms. Read more about the 1share1condom campaign and see how you can potentially save a life with the power of one single tweet or facebook like.
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